Saturday links: Avril finding his niche

For our Seahawks story for today’s paper, I wrote a little bit defensive end Cliff Avril who was one of the free agents brought in during the off-season to shore up the pass rush.

As the story notes, Avril has done his job, with a team-high 7.5 sacks and four forced fumbles.

He’s also doing so playing about 20 percent fewer snaps or so than he typically did in Detroit as the Seahawks have implemented a pretty heavy rotation up front. And remember a month or so ago when that was something of a bone of contention, that the Seahawks played so many different players regularly? It’s hard to argue the results right now, nor the fact that everyone up front has stayed healthy to this point.

Avril, if you recall, missed the first game after also missing much of the off-season workouts and training camp with a couple different injuries. And he acknowledges that was a tough way to break in with a new team.

“I think it was more frustrating not being out there with my new teammates and showing them that I can play a little bit and what I am capable of doing and building that bond with those guys,” he said. “Because when we get out there on that football field, you’ve got to be able to rely and trust on the guy next to you and I couldn’t really do that because I was out, and that was the most frustrating part to me.”

In other news today. …

— Really interesting story here from USA Today on the 49ers’ hatred toward the Seahawks. It includes this quote from guard Alex Boone: “I don’t know anybody in here that likes anybody on the Seahawks. If you find one, you let me know.” The Seahawks largely spent the week downplaying the rivalry aspect of the game — not so the 49ers;